Your Angel
by Moonfire14
Summary: Jack is a high ranking guardian angel, who has lived for thousands of years, playing by the angels' rules. He has never felt the need to break a rule. Jack is not a young angel and is set in his ways, only changing his way of dressing and speaking to match the times, but never his morals but his world begins to unravel when he meets a young orphan named Mark.
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings (For the whole story): OCC Characters (For the most part anyway), Gay Relationship, Attempted Rape, Hurt/Comfort, Growing Up Fic, Mentioned Homophobia, Twist Ending, Somewhat Happy Ending (I think it's a happy one but some people may be disappointed), Gay Sex, Underage Drinking, Language, Mild Fighting Scenes, Mild Underaged Sexual Scenes (He was seventeen so technically underage)**

 **Author's Note: This has to be the longest thing I have ever written and I had planned to post it all as one whole chapter but it took a long while to write just this part so I had to split it. But I had so much fun writing it! I love doing stories like this but I always try to do them with my own original chaptered stories when the topic might better be suited as a short story. Doing this as a fanfiction instead of an original story was a good idea and hope you guys like reading this as much as I liked writing it!**

 **P.S. Cross posted on wattpad and archiveofourown**

 **P.S.S. The italics at the beginning of each part are song lyrics from the song that inspired this whole story. The song is Angel With A Shotgun by The Cab. This isn't a song fic but I wanted to include them anyway.**

 **/x/**

(I'm

 _an angel with a shotgun, shotgun, shotgun,_

 _An angel with a shotgun, shotgun, shotgun.)_

 _Get out your guns, battle's begun._

 _Are you a saint or a sinner?_

 _If love's a fight then I shall die_

 _With my heart on a trigger._

Most people don't expect to be great, to be someone people can look up to but the ones who expect greatness are never truly great. Greatness was earned not guaranteed. Those were my thoughts as I sat and watched. That was my job; watching and guiding the great ones. And I was currently looking for the next human I would be spending the next twenty to thirty years of my immortal life with until they no longer had need of me. I had not been told much about this one, just where to find him and enough of a description to be able to tell him apart from any other child who might find their way into the alley below me. I was looking for a little boy who was of asian descent and had been living on the streets since his parents deaths a few months ago. It wasn't a large amount to go on but I had found my targets with less. By this point in my angelic life it was more of a waiting game then a guessing game.

I closed my eyes to the setting sun and leaned my head back into the cool air, heightening my already hypersensitive senses with such a simple act. The city was alive around me in sounds and smells that lit up my senses, painting a picture around me; the sounds of cars on the road, people bustling about in their now inpatient way,the sound of a phone ringing, the sounds of yelling and arguing inside houses, a distant gunshot followed by a sickening thud; the smell of dinners cooking in house, flowers blooming in window boxes, the smell of a recent rainfall, the fresh scent of clothes being taken out of a dryer, the putrid smell of gasoline. My nose wrinkled in disgust. I had come to hate what humanity had become with all the killings and the pollution. The sheer destruction of it all and the worst part was I understood them. I had been human once and was ashamed to say I knew their urge to destroy, to beat, dominate, take. I hated knowing how it felt and hated knowing what I had been. It infuriated and disgusted me at the same time.

I opened my eyes to the fading light and the gray bricks of the roof of the building I was standing on. I unclenched my fists slowly and spread pale fingers along the stone parapet, remembering that even though I had watched a race grow to be evil and destructive, not every person was defined by their race. I had seen good hearted people. I had guided them and here I was looking for the next one pure of heart because _she_ had convinced me to give humanity another chance.

A new stifling scent filled the air, invading my senses with a smell I was too familiar with in this day and age. It was fear that hung in the air with its rancid scent. Following the scent by just a few seconds was the cracking sound of shoes smacking the concrete with force as someone ran towards the alley I was gazing down at. A young boy, gasping and out of breath, ducked into the alley as he dove in between a huge dumpster and a metal trash can. He took deep breaths as he leaned his head back against the filthy wall that most people wouldn't even touch with their hands but it looked like filth was something the kid was accustomed to. His already tan skin was splotched with dirt and grim, his clothes was ripped in place that showed his ribs clearly through his t-shirt. The kid looked only about six but he was already this bad off, living on the streets. Maybe the world wasn't worth saving.

I heard a loud gasp and my attention was drawn to the little boy crouched in the alley. He was staring up at me with wide chocolate brown eyes and a slack jaw. That was strange enough by itself because I was using my abilities to cloak myself from prying eyes but what made it stranger was the twisting, pulling that seemed to be dragging me by my insides to the boy. I have never felt something like that before and it scared me. Everything seemed to slow as the boy seemed to gain some semblance of control, his dark eyes blinking and his jaw returning to its normal position, but his lips were still parted in surprise.

The sound of pounding feet snapped things back into motion as the kid's head snapped to the side so hard he probably gave himself whiplash. A little terrified squeak found its way out of his parted lips as he noticed the two bigger boys standing in the opening to the alley, their fists raised threateningly. With a clatter of trash cans and another high pitched scream, the little boy took off running down the alley. Without another thought, I spread my powerful wings and took off into the air, only a single fallen feather left to mark my presence. All thoughts fled besides the ones of that boy. He was an anomaly and I hadn't met many of those, especially not one my own power and body had reacted to so violently. I had to find out what made him special so I followed them on silent wings, waiting for the chance to swoop in and rescue the boy.

The kid finally made a fatal wrong turn in his running through the alleyways and ran into a dead end. The older boys, about eleven or twelve, advanced towards the cowering boy with their fist raised threateningly. I didn't wait to see what was going to happen, I just acted on instinct. I swooped down, letting my powers thrum through my veins, making my body light up like a true angel. My fingers curled towards my palm as my sword formed out of seemingly nowhere just before I landed in a crouch in front of the boy as I uncloaked myself. I had no intention to use my sword but having it was intimidating and would likely scare the kids away if my appearance wasn't scary enough. I knew how I looked, flushed with power and ready for a fight: glowing white eyes, fiery sword clutched in my hand, the light of heaven illuminating me.

One look at me had the bullies running. I grinned and turned to the boy still pressed flat into the wall. I pulled my power back, trapping under my skin once again and I felt everything fade away again. Pushing my hair out of my eyes, I leaned forward to get a better look at the boy I had just saved as if that could explain why my very power itself was drawn to him.

The boy was Asian no doubt and I was right in my assumption of his age because looking at his face there was no way he could be any older than seven. He looked like he's been living on the streets a good while now, probably around four or five months. Props to the kid for surviving that long. Wait. Asian. Orphan or runway but orphan was more likely. Child. It couldn't be and yet it had to be. I had been waiting on top of that building for three hours and nobody had came that fit the description of my new charge. Nobody but this boy.

That was when I noticed just how scared he was. He stared at me with wide almond eyes and harsh pants falling from his lips. He was terrified of me. Well I guess I didn't make the best entrance to make him trust me.

"Hey lad, it's alright. I don't plan ta hurt ya." I told him gently as I pulled my hands out of my jeans pockets in a gesture of surrender.

"But you're a monster and monsters hurt people." The boy said as he said pressed to the wall, not daring to come closer to me.

"You're right monsters do hurt people but I'm not a monster. I am a badass angel," I said as I grinned and flapped my wings in demonstration. Not that that was particularly a good demonstration. Demons had wings too and some even had feathery wings but the kid didn't have to know that.

"But you don't seem like an angel," He said even as his posture loosened up.

I looked around quickly, trying to catch my reflection in something to see what he meant. I caught a glimpse in a nearby metal trash can but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I was wearing the same kind of thing I have worn since the late 1990s; pale jeans with frayed edges, a light blue hoodie over a black t-shirt I could just see the collar of. My hair hadn't changed much either since that time. It was cute short on the sides and dyed light brown while my natural lime green angel hair hung in my face. Why angels have unusual colored hair when they are expected to blend in with mankind, I have no idea. My hair had been light brown when I had been alive, evidence by the brown scraggly beard on my jawline but for some reason when I became an angel, the hair on top of my head turned green. That was probably what the kid found off.

"The green hair wasn't me choice."

"It's not just that. You just don't seem like an angel. You seem human," The boy said as he pulled himself off the wall and stepped closer to me.

"That's the idea lad," I said as I pushed my hair out of my eyes once again. "So how does a little boy like ya end up on the streets."

"My parents died in a car crash and I was in it to and ended up in the hospital for a week. My grandmother took me in after that but she got to old to care for me so they took me away. I had no other family so I ended up in the orphanage but they all picked on me and beat me up. So I ran away. Those boys were from there." The boy looked down at his feet. "You aren't going to take me back are you, Mr. Angel?"

"Not unless ye want ta go back. I'm here to guide ya, not make you do something you don't want." Guardian angels couldn't force their charges to do anything. Free will was a big part of our job.

"Guide me? So are you like a gaurdian angel?"

"Yep. All yers. Name's Jack." I told him as I held out a hand. Jack wasn't my angel name because I rarely told that one but it had been my name when I had been alive so it worked.

The little boy smiled, his grin bright and so full of like, as he reached out to take my hand.

"My name is Mark," He said a fraction of a second before his hand slid into mine. Light bloomed from the touch and I felt my power pulling towards him but this pulling was familiar. My power was seeking him out, linking him to me until the time when our contract was done. Mark's lips parted in surprise as the light faded and he was left with a tiny white wing embossed on the back of his hand. I felt that pull, the strange one, again as he looked up at me with that innocent look on his face and his little hand clenched tighter in mine.

"So you're going to protect me now, Mr. Angel?"

"It's just Jack and yes Mark, I will."


	2. Chapter 2

_They say before you start a war,_

 _You better know what you're fighting for._

 _Well, baby, you are all that I adore._

 _If love is what you need, a soldier I will be._

"School sucks," Mark groaned as he flopped his head down into his open math book, his math homework lying half done next to him on the crimson bedspread. I chuckled as I spun around in Mark's desk chair, tucking my wings closer into my back as I leaned back into the back rest, before taking a look at the ten year old sprawled out on his stomach.

It had been a little over four years since I had found him on the streets and a lot of things had changed in that time. Mark had been adopted with just a little help from me, he had grown although admittedly not by much. He was still a cute shorty. Now Mark was going to school and things were beginning to look up for the boy but I was no closer to figuring out why my power, my very being was drawn to him that I was when we first met. And the worst part was that it was getting substantially worse as time passed. I didn't know how much more of it I could take before I would break. It didn't just draw me to him. It made every sense of mine heighten more than ever until I can smell his natural scent on the air, see for miles away, I could feel every grain of texture when I touched something,and I could hear the smallest insect in Mark's green yard. It was driving me insane because it only happened around Mark and I couldn't figure out why or how to stop it. It wasn't like my other powers that I could just flick off like a switch. It ran deeper, was more ancient.

"Jackkkkkkkkk," Mark whined as he lifted his head from the book and poked out his plump lower lip in a pout. "Can you help me, pwease?"

It was hard to say no after the cute little pwease he added, those doe eyes and that pout and Mark knew it. The boy could play me like a fiddle when it suited him and that was definitely something none of my other charges had been able to do, besides _Her_ of course but Mark didn't have to know that. Unfortunately for Mark, he asked for help in the wrong subject entirely.

"Sorry Marky but I was always shite at math. Geography too. Both are likely because when I was born we didn't have that fancy math or that many places to memorize," I told him before I absentmindedly picked up one of the many pencils scattered around Mark's keyboard and began twirling it between my fingers as I listened to the light drumming of night time rain on the roof. At first I remembered trying not to cuss to much in front of him since he was one of my youngest charges ever but I had soon thrown in the towel on that one and just hoped he didn't pick up on that pattern of speech, not that it was an unusual thing if he did. There was nothing in the guardian angel handbook that says I have to keep my charges from swearing or that I couldn't. And yes the handbook was a real thing.

Mark sat up on his knees and adjusted his white t-shirt to cover the bit of tan skin peeking out from the top of his jeans before sliding his legs off his bed so he could look straight at Jack. The boy was short enough that his bare feet barely brushed the carpet when he sat like that.

"Well if you can't help me with my homework, will you at least help me take a break? There are some questions I have been wanting to ask for awhile."

"Okay. Shoot Marky," I said as I let the pencil fall back to the wood of the desk before propping my head up in my hand and gazing at him.

"The one I have been wondering the longest is about your accent. Actually not just the accent, the way you talk in general with all the cussing and stuff."

"I'm Irish. The accent and the swearing come with the territory," I said chuckling.

"I know that but an Irish angel doesn't make much sense. I thought angel were supposed to be well.. saints and you don't act like one." Mark said as his brows furrowed but I had to agree. I was no way a saint. Mark continued his thoughts," I guess what I'm asking is why are you Irish?"

"Well like all guardian angels, I was human once. An Irishman back in the day with my own guardian angel."

"You had a guardian angel?" The boy said, leaning forward in interest with bright eyes that I was sure I could drown in if I let myself but I had to remind myself that he was one of my charges and just a kid but I couldn't deny that something was there under my skin that wanted him.

"Yep. That's why we exist. Ta weed out the good for the bad and when ye die if it's not early then ye will become one of us," I said watching as Mark grinned.

"That's awesome and we will still be friends then right?" But then the bright grin faded. "But you probably have other charges to that have joined you, don't you?"

"Not as much as ye might imagine," I said, telling the truth but hoping it would put that bright smile back on his young face. "I only guide them fer awhile and what they do after is their choice."

"Oh. You said that if I die early then I won't become a guardian angel. Have you ever had one of your charges die?"

That was one of the downsides to having a bright and inquisitive charge. They had a way of getting under your skin and unraveling your hidden, innermost thoughts. I simply nodded in response as the memories assaulted me. _The sound of her laugh, the feel of her head resting on my shoulder as we watched a movie, the way she sang along to every song on the radio as she drove with me in the passenger seat laughing all the while, all the happy memories but I also remembered the funeral that I shouldn't have been at: the way her skin had lightened enough to blend into the silken lining of the casket, the sound of her parents crying, the hot tears that rolled down my own face and the way I couldn't help but think it was my fault._

It was the sound of a drawer opening and closing that brought me back to the present. Mark was pulling out a pair of dark pajama bottoms and slipping off his jeans before pulling them on. "How many of them died?"

I didn't answer as one last memory of _her_ slid away again _._

 _The hands of the newly dead's hand on my shoulder and the smile on her lips even after I had told her that I wouldn't take another charge after that; that I had lost faith on the world and I would rather die to be with her. And the words she uttered:_

" _It wasn't your fault. Don't give up because of me. Give the world one more chance and you might find that it's not so bad."_

"Jack. Did any of them die?"

Suddenly I found it too much. Mark's questions were ringing in my head like bells, bringing guilt and anger with them. I stood up quickly, slamming my hand into the desk with a loud thunk, scaring the young boy who just stared at me with wide dark eyes. I took a deep breath as I stepped away to the window.

"Enough questions fer now," I said as I slid the window open and peered out. I just wanted to get away and be by myself but it was raining so hard. I was debating whether or not to go ahead and fly through it and deal with uncomfortably wet wings or pretend sleep in Mark's desk chair again when his impossibly soft and tiny voice spoke.

"I'm sorry Jack," He said and I turned to look at him. He was once again sitting in his bed looking up at me but this time his already dark eyes were clouded with sadness and I found myself angry at having been the one to put it there. "I don't want you to leave again," He said referring to the other few times I had needed to get away and had ended up on a nearby rooftop alone. It's raining so stay. Please. For me."

For a ten year old, he sure knew how to pull on people's heartstrings and as he probably knew it would make me do; I crumbled.

"Okay, Marky. Time to get ready fer bed." I said as I slid the window closed again and walked over to pick up Mark's homework and textbooks off his bed and set the on top of his desk as the kid burrowed under his comforter. I was just about to sit down in the desk chair when he spoke up again.

"Jack."

I turned to look at him and found that he was sitting up in his bed and was facing me. I didn't say anything, just nodded in acknowledgement that I had heard him.

"Come over here. You can't keep sleeping in that chair and there is plenty of room over here next to me."

I slowly nodded, ignoring the screaming in my head telling me no and padded over to him. He laid down as I toed off my shoes and pulled my hoodie off so I was left in a black t-shirt and maroon sweats. I settled on top of the blankets on my stomach next to him with a small contented sigh.

I used to do this with _her_ too. I'd lay beside by her side keeping her company with laughter and smiles on the nights sleep evaded her,and watching as she slowly drifted off to sleep, her dirty blond hair spread out on her pale pillowcase. She was the reason I developed the habit of sleeping even when I didn't need it that much. Because of her I found that the normally energy depletion that too much time on Earth could be lessened by sleep but after I lost her, I lost the ability to find sleep.

I shook myself of the memories and instead focused on the present and the ten year old already beginning to drift off, black lashes brushing lightly across his cheeks as his eyes would flutter closed even though he seemed to be fighting sleep. That strange feeling rose up but even though I was beginning to recognize it, I made a promise right then, lying in that bed that I would never do anything by it. I would never defile _her_ memory like that. But three minutes later, I was already beginning to break that promise as I drifted off to sleep, with Mark's even breathing as background noise, for the first time since _her_ death.


End file.
